Inspired by Gunny, I decided to hike up the old Roman road we used to call the Guadelupe River today. From Rebecca Creek bridge to Rust Falls.

The Guadelupe is in a very sad state of affairs…bone dry except for a few pools here and there. The river reminds me of sections of the Via Appia. Rust Falls is just a dry cliff now.

I found two old phones, coins and a vintage Zodiac SeaWolf watch with the initials R L F engraved on the back case.

It is not anywhere close to being in working condition but if you are RLF or know him and lost a Zodiac on the Guadelupe years ago, I have your watch.

That's sad about the river. Our ranch was about 1/2 mile upstream of Rust Falls. I can't tell you how many years of fishing and swimming we did there. I was born in the late 50's on that place. I can only remember the river not running in the 60's and 70's only a couple of times.
We used to go under the falls….as you could get behind the water pouring over them. Were some shallow caves….not really caves but overhangs.
Used to take girlfriends under there.
Can't believe it's dry all the time now.
Used to shoot with my dad and grandfather
on Sundays after church at the old "Schutzenverein" (German for Shooting Club)
which was located on the west side of the river just upstream from the Rebecca Creek bridge.
Last time I saw it (about 8 years ago) some of the old shed and range was still standing.
My family and I hid under that bridge during a tornado in the early 60's or late 50's
…can't remember exactly…just know I was scared ****less.
Gus Rust, who owned the ranch across the river from our place, was my mom's cousin.
There was a time he would have pulled a gun on strangers while on horseback for trespassing on his land down at what we called "The Falls".
Lots of memories there.
In the late 70's lots of folks started renting canoes at the Hwy 281 bridge and floating to the Rebecca Creek bridge. We had lots of issues of trash and trespassing all up and down the river. Lots of disrespect from kids and drunks coming down the river. That watch is probably from somebody who wiped out in their canoe at the "chute" which was a very swift water rapids just to the left of the falls (facing downstream). … that lots of canoers turned over there.

The schutzenverein buildings are still there as I saw them today. They are on some neighborhood river park property now. My old fire chief was a target kid in his youth at the verein off of Solms road.

The "advantage" of a dry river, I guess, is I was able to stay in the river bed and not get on people's property almost the entire hike except for one 20 yard "portage" around a deep hole that took all of 30 seconds.

More Texans = less River. That's the way it will be I'm afraid.

MouthBQ98 said:

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More Texans = less River. That's the way it will be I'm afraid.

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More green lawns = less rivers and springs. We need to divorce our state from green grass.

Wha machine do you use for this kind of thing? When I was a kid, my dad and I got on a kick and we joined a club and met some folks and we both bought a metal detector. I ended up buying a Fisher CZ-5. We managed to detect private properties along the Brazos where we lived and found musket balls, silver chalices, coins, military buttons and all kinds of stuff. It was a lot of fun. I still have my detector leaning against the wall in the corner of my room. I've used it where we live since we have some live water creeks on our ranch and a historic schoolhouse from that is on our place. For me the challenge is having to dig everything. My cz-5 discriminates but I'm not going to be finding any watches or gold rings without digging big hits on pull tabs. Our place has been farmed since before this was a state so there is no shortage of metal in the dirt. lol.

Cool thing and had a lot of good times as a teen doing it.

Really enjoy reading your posts.

If you would replace your green grass with green vegetables...

I did this about 5 years ago when I moved into Limestone County. I kept a 20'x100' area for the two dachshunds. I also made raised beds for all my plots.

Currently growing:
Cantaloupe
Blackberries
Strawberries
Raspberries
Grapes
Asparagus
Potatoes (red and white)
Pole beans
Tomatoes
Onions
Bell peppers
Egg Plant (struggling)
Radish (struggling)
Brussel Sprouts (failing)
Carrots (failing - but have succeeded in the past - not sure why they failed this year)
Figs
Pecans

txags92 said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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More Texans = less River. That's the way it will be I'm afraid.

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More green lawns = less rivers and springs. We need to divorce our state from green grass.

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Lest we all forget that it doesn't rain anymore.

Appreciate that.

I currently use a Minelab Equinox 900 and I am very happy with it. Very long battery life, light and collapsible so I can fit it in a backpack (I ride my motorcycles almost exclusively now to go anywhere) and waterproof enough to hit the rivers.

I used a Garrett AT-Pro for a while and have no complaints about it but I covered a swimming area with the Minelab that I had hit with the AT twice before and found THREE small gold rings with the Minelab that the AT had missed.

But that detector you have is a legend and will still do the job for sure!

As far as digging trash…yep, that is part of it. I use a 6" sniper coil most of the time because it is able to isolate targets better in trashy areas like the rivers where there is a pull tab every square inch.

But like the saying goes when it comes to dirt fishing, you gotta dig the trash to dig the treasure!

In the early 70's the river dried up and my Ag roommate and I walked the riverbed from our home above Rust falls all the way to the far upper river end of Canyon Lake. We had planned it and left a vehicle at a family members farm on the river down there so we didn't have to walk all the way back.

Here is a fun fact. When I was kid they were building Canyon Lake. A Corps of Engineers surveyor came to our ranch and put markers out of where the water would back up to once the lake got full. He told us the lake, when full, was going to cover up Rust falls and we would be able to put a boat in at our place and drive all the way to Canyon Dam.
He placed steel markers way up the river bank below our house and showed us how cool it was going to be for us to have the lake fill up to there.
He even showed us where to build a boat ramp!
Well, we kept waiting for the lake to get full and have "Lake Front" property as they said.
Of course it never happened. Even when Canyon went over the spillway in 2002, water never backed up that far upstream. Rumor was that they caught lots of hell for what the lake was going to cover up and were having to pay a lot of $$$$ for eminent domain land so they reduced the size of the dam and full pool capacity amount.
We were poor as church mice then and I remember it was a huge deal that they were going to pay my dad a whopping $1000 for the land we would lose. Of course they never paid because the lake never did end up covering any of our land.
It did cover up the little towns of Cranes Mill and Hancock though.

txags92 said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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More Texans = less River. That's the way it will be I'm afraid.

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More green lawns = less rivers and springs. We need to divorce our state from green grass.

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it amazes me that people are stupid enough to believe the marketing propaganda from lawn chemical companies convincing them they need manicured lawns like foppish European nobility.

Very interesting. I love reading about and hearing about stuff like this.

I got off shift the morning after the 2002 flood and went to see the spillway carnage. Spent much of the night evacuating people away from Dry Comal Creek.

I was still in uniform so the deputy let me past the barrier and I was able to see up close and personal the creation of that gorge.

SanAntoneAg said:

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txags92 said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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More Texans = less River. That's the way it will be I'm afraid.

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More green lawns = less rivers and springs. We need to divorce our state from green grass.

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Lest we all forget that it doesn't rain anymore.

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Multi-decadal droughts have been seen in the longer historical record from Texas and across the southwest. We should start acting like our current conditions could be semi permanent if we want to keep the rivers and springflows we have left.

It isn't just because of watering lawns. It's the thousands of houses and businesses now built around the river all with wells like straws sucking out of the aquifers and rivers.
It's also about the millions of gallons of waste of water by people everyday. Like leaving the water in the sink running as you brush your teeth or wash your hands. Or leaking toilets, dripping faucets, washing cars, or taking 30 minute showers,etc.
Just about everyone waste water everyday.
Multiply that by millions and it's easy to figure out why our rivers are going dry. ….. that and the lack of rainfall.
When I was young, and the few times the Guadalupe stopped running at our place, a large rain event like what happened on July 4th of 2025 would fix it for a few years if rainfall stayed normal.
Now…less than a year later the Guadalupe is dry again. The issue is simply too many straws sucking out of the glass of water.

Yep.

I used to detect with my grandfather and father when I was younger. I've recently picked it back up. I'm 52 now and find it to just e a relaxing hobby and kind of like fishing, you get a bite,(beep) and don't know what it is until you dig it up. I just bought the Minelab Equinox Elite and have been out to Lake Conroe and a local school yard. So far just some coins, and a toy car, but one of the pennies was a 1940 wheat penny. Detectors have come a long way since the 80s!

SanAntoneAg said:

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txags92 said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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More Texans = less River. That's the way it will be I'm afraid.

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More green lawns = less rivers and springs. We need to divorce our state from green grass.

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Lest we all forget that it doesn't rain anymore.

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Saw yesterday that El Niño is pretty much locked in for Summer and high chance of a Super El Niño. Last time there was a Super, Austin got 60 inches of rain. Not sure about the Guadalupe watershed.

I'm 52 also. Come over to NB and we will go dirt fishing around town or hit shallows in the river.

And yes, like many things, detectors are very sophisticated today compared to the past.

Gunny456 said:

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That's sad about the river. Our ranch was about 1/2 mile upstream of Rust Falls. I can't tell you how many years of fishing and swimming we did there. I was born in the late 50's on that place. I can only remember the river not running in the 60's and 70's only a couple of times.
We used to go under the falls….as you could get behind the water pouring over them. Were some shallow caves….not really caves but overhangs.
Used to take girlfriends under there.
Can't believe it's dry all the time now.
Used to shoot with my dad and grandfather
on Sundays after church at the old "Schutzenverein" (German for Shooting Club)
which was located on the west side of the river just upstream from the Rebecca Creek bridge.
Last time I saw it (about 8 years ago) some of the old shed and range was still standing.
My family and I hid under that bridge during a tornado in the early 60's or late 50's
…can't remember exactly…just know I was scared ****less.
Gus Rust, who owned the ranch across the river from our place, was my mom's cousin.
There was a time he would have pulled a gun on strangers while on horseback for trespassing on his land down at what we called "The Falls".
Lots of memories there.
In the late 70's lots of folks started renting canoes at the Hwy 281 bridge and floating to the Rebecca Creek bridge. We had lots of issues of trash and trespassing all up and down the river. Lots of disrespect from kids and drunks coming down the river. That watch is probably from somebody who wiped out in their canoe at the "chute" which was a very swift water rapids just to the left of the falls (facing downstream). … that lots of canoers turned over there.

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Gunny check your PM. I originally posted it here but thought better of it

Also throw in the fact that junipers aren't controlled anymore like they were. A mature juniper can suck up close to 80 gallons a day. Even if you figure 20 gallons, think of how many trees there are. Multiple thousands of acre feet of water every year go to feeding a semi invasive tree that should be better controlled.

Our family place is about a mile south on the Gaudalupe from Rust Falls. They got a little rain it looks like over the weekend it's been insanely dry lately. Hopefully we can call it a river again one day.

schmellba99 said:

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Also throw in the fact that junipers aren't controlled anymore like they were. A mature juniper can suck up close to 80 gallons a day. Even if you figure 20 gallons, think of how many trees there are. Multiple thousands of acre feet of water every year go to feeding a semi invasive tree that should be better controlled.

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Yes, they take a lot of water individually, but the old research showing that removing them increases available water in the shallow aquifer has been shown to be a shorter term effect that initially thought. Other vegetation that grows in place of the juniper (that was blocked by the junipers previously) fills in the gap and take up most of the water balance gained by removing the junipers. Better control is certainly a benefit still, but it isn't the panacea for water that it is made out to be at times.

RethinkTheWeekend said:

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Our family place is about a mile south on the Gaudalupe from Rust Falls. They got a little rain it looks like over the weekend it's been insanely dry lately. Hopefully we can call it a river again one day.

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We live about a quarter mile west of 281 and the river bridge and we got 4/10's of an inch from last Fri through this morning.

We have had this discussion before. Clearing the Ash Juniper has factually caused springs to start producing that before did not. It certainly did on our ranch when we cleared 800 acres of Juniper.
The data you speak of did not take into account areas of shallow limestone formations that were choked with cedar roots. In many areas of the hill country where there are fissures and cracks within the limestone formations the clearing of the ash juniper greatly improved the percolation of the ground.
The other fact that was erroneous on the studies you referenced was that they used regrowth cedar as most of their test areas instead of virgin cedar areas. The older larger trees that are in older age cedar thickets consume the high volumes of water Schmelba references.

Gunny456 said:

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We have had this discussion before. Clearing the Ash Juniper has factually caused springs to start producing that before did not. It certainly did on our ranch when we cleared 800 acres of Juniper.
The data you speak of did not take into account areas of shallow limestone formations that were choked with cedar roots. In many areas of the hill country where there are fissures and cracks within the limestone formations the clearing of the ash juniper greatly improved the percolation of the ground.
The other fact that was erroneous on the studies you referenced was that they used regrowth cedar as most of their test areas instead of virgin cedar areas. The older larger trees that are in older age cedar thickets consume the high volumes of water Schmelba references.

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Lot of conflicting studies out there. It is undeniable that removing the juniper will have a near term effect of increasing available water like you had on your place. It is less conclusive that the long term results won't be significantly reduced by regrowth of other vegetation in place of the junipers.

Roger that.

When I was in the Texas Forest Service there was a case study about a ranch in the San Antonio area that cleared hundreds of acres of ash juniper (mountain cedar) and springs on the property that had not run for years started flowing again.

I don't remember the specifics as this was almost 30 years ago but it could have possibly been your place. ?

That was probably the Seco Creek Water Quality project north of D'Hanis. B-1-83 OB here and my former Ag teacher worked on it.

I believe you can still find the published results online.

Found an overview here. The entire report is available, but harder to get.

https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/638945/11161-10703-1-PB.pdf?sequence=1

https://www.bambergerranch.org

TheMetalDetective said:

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Roger that.

When I was in the Texas Forest Service there was a case study about a ranch in the San Antonio area that cleared hundreds of acres of ash juniper (mountain cedar) and springs on the property that had not run for years started flowing again.

I don't remember the specifics as this was almost 30 years ago but it could have possibly been your place. ?

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Probably the Bamberger place. There are stories all over about his kind of thing happening. The junipers have been shown to improve recharge over shallow karst terrains by enhancing fracture flow pathways and improving the soil quality underneath them. So it is not surprising that when you remove them, the enhanced recharge pathways remain, but the straw of the juniper roots sucking up the water goes away. But what other studies have shown is that the dramatic changes from increased recharge are not permanent because other vegetation that grows in to replace the junipers puts their own roots down into those open pathways and starts siphoning off the water instead. Most of them are not as thirsty as the junipers, so there is some net benefit in removing them, but the profound impacts people see in the first few months or a year or so after removing juniper are not typically long-lasting changes.

Charismatic Megafauna said:

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https://www.bambergerranch.org

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Beat me to it.

The latter studies ( Think published by NRCS) determined that what you said was true IF the native grasses and forbes did not germinate in the ground where it had previously been devoid under the blanket or canopy of the cedar.
That's another bad effect of cedar …… virtually no grasses or any other vegetation grow under canopy of the trees. This is in turns causes a lot of erosion of the top soil…allowing it to wash away…taking with it all the dormant grass seeds.
After the cedar is cleared it is oftentimes a necessity to reseed with a native grass mix if there is insufficient dormant seeds or topsoil.
If reseeding is not performed then the result is an infestation of woody brush species, cactus, etc…..causing the absorption of ground water.
However if native grasses and forbes do germinate, or reseeding is preformed….. allowing and resulting in a replenishment of the grasslands then the water waisting cactus, and woody species will be choked out.
The end result will be much more water entering the aquifer because of the cedar being cleared.

Gunny456 said:

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The latter studies ( Think published by NRCS) determined that what you said was true IF the native grasses and forbes did not germinate in the ground where it had previously been devoid under the blanket or canopy of the cedar.
That's another bad effect of cedar …… virtually no grasses or any other vegetation grow under canopy of the trees. This is in turns causes a lot of erosion of the top soil…allowing it to wash away…taking with it all the dormant grass seeds.
After the cedar is cleared it is oftentimes a necessity to reseed with a native grass mix if there is insufficient dormant seeds or topsoil.
If reseeding is not performed then the result is an infestation of woody brush species, cactus, etc…..causing the absorption of ground water.
However if native grasses and forbes do germinate, or reseeding is preformed….. allowing and resulting in a replenishment of the grasslands then the water waisting cactus, and woody species will be choked out.
The end result will be much more water entering the aquifer because of the cedar being cleared.

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And establishing native grasses where they previously were not present over a large area in the hill country has been nigh on impossible for the last decade or more due to the lack of meaningful and consistent rainfall. Ask me how I know!

Understand my friend. Feel your pain.

Gunny456 said:

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Understand my friend. Feel your pain.

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I'm getting tired of writing that we were unable to do any further reestablishment plantings due to ongoing drought in our annual management plan reports.

Man o man. I can imagine. We are dry here in the Ozarks as well. It's gotta rain sometime right?? All we can do is pray.
We will get a forecast for 4 days of 80-90% chance of rain. As that day approaches they just keep lowering it till it's nothing.
It sucks.
Well hope you get some rain my brother!